Google quietly launches free offline AI dictation app on iOS with no subscription fees

Google quietly releases an offline-first AI dictation app on iOS | TechCrunch

The app is free to download, and once its Gemma-based automatic speech recognition (ASR) models are downloaded, you can start dictating on your phone. In the app, you can see the live transcription, and when you hit pause, the app automatically filters out filler words like "um" and "ah" and polishes the text. Below the transcript are options like "Key points", "Formal", "Short", and "Long" to transform the text. You can also turn off the cloud mode to use local-only processing. (When cloud mode is on, the app uses cloud-based Gemini models for text cleanup.) The Google AI Edge Eloquent can import certain keywords, names, and jargon from your Gmail account, if desired. Plus, you can add your own custom words to the list. The app displays the history of the transcription session and lets you search through all of them as well. It can show you words dictated in the last session, your word per minute speed, and the total number of words spoken. "Google AI Edge Eloquent is an advanced dictation app engineered to bridge the gap between natural speech and professional, ready-to-use text. Unlike standard dictation software that transcribes stumbles and filler words verbatim, Eloquent utilizes AI to capture your intended meaning. It automatically edits out 'ums,' 'uhs,' and mid-sentence self-corrections, outputting clean, accurate prose," the company's App Store description reads. While the app is currently only available on iOS, the App Store description references an Android version. (We have reached out to Google for more information, and will update the story if we hear back.) According to the description, Eloquent offers "seamless Android integration," where it can be set as users' default keyboard for system-wide access across any text field. Plus, the app will be able to use the floating button feature, similar to the one Wispr Flow uses on Android, for easy access to transcription from anywhere. AI-powered transcription apps are gaining popularity among users as speech-to-text models get better. With this experimental app, Google is joining the trend. If this test is successful, we could see improved transcription features across Android, too.

Google quietly releases free offline AI dictation app for iPhone | TNW

In short: Google has quietly released an iOS app called Google AI Edge Eloquent, a free, offline-first voice dictation tool that transcribes speech in real time, strips filler words automatically, and transforms raw dictation into polished text without requiring an internet connection. The app runs on Gemma-based on-device ASR models, offers an optional cloud mode using Gemini for text cleanup, carries no subscription and no usage caps, and includes a personal vocabulary dictionary that can import frequently used words directly from a user's recent Gmail history. It appeared in the App Store on 6 April 2026 with no press release or announcement. An Android version is referenced in the App Store listing but has not yet appeared on Google Play. Google released a dictation app last Sunday and did not tell anyone. Google AI Edge Eloquent appeared in the iOS App Store on 6 April 2026 with no announcement, no blog post, and no press event, the kind of launch that invites the word "quietly" in every subsequent headline. The app is free, requires no subscription, and places no cap on usage. It runs speech recognition on-device using Gemma-based ASR models, which means recordings do not need to leave the phone. Given that the two most popular premium dictation apps for iPhone currently charge between $85 and $180 a year, that combination of features is not a minor release. Opening Eloquent presents a dictation interface with a live waveform. As you speak, the app transcribes in real time. When you pause or stop, it automatically processes the raw speech: filler words , "um", "ah", and similar verbal placeholders, are removed, and the surrounding text is smoothed into readable prose. The cleaned transcript is copied to the clipboard automatically, ready to paste wherever it is needed. A toggle in the top-right corner switches between two processing modes. In fully offline mode, all audio stays on the device and is processed by the Gemma-based ASR model locally, nothing is sent to a server. In cloud mode, the speech recognition still begins on-device, but Gemini models handle the text cleanup in the cloud. The distinction matters for privacy-sensitive contexts: users in regulated industries, or anyone wary of uploading voice data to a remote server, have a credible fully local option. The growing demand in 2026 for AI tools that process data locally rather than sending it to third-party servers has become a primary consideration in enterprise and professional software procurement, and Eloquent addresses it in the first toggle the user sees. Beyond the core transcription, Eloquent includes four text transformation tools: "Key points" extracts the main ideas from the dictation as a bulleted list; "Formal" rewrites the transcript in a more professional register; "Short" condenses it; and "Long" expands it. A history tab retains all previous transcriptions, each deletable individually. Usage statistics track cumulative word count and words per minute, a detail aimed at productivity-conscious users who want to measure how much they are actually dictating. The most notable secondary feature is a personal context dictionary. Users can manually add names or technical jargon to improve transcription accuracy for domain-specific vocabulary. Optionally, users who sign in with a Google Account can allow Eloquent to import frequently used words from their recently sent Gmail messages, building a vocabulary profile without requiring any deliberate configuration. It is the one point in the app where Google's wider data ecosystem appears, briefly and optionally, in what is otherwise a self-contained local tool. The release on iOS before Android is an unusual move for Google. Android is Google's own platform; it is where Google typically demonstrates new capabilities first, using Gemini Nano and the AI Edge SDK that run directly on Pixel and compatible hardware. Releasing Eloquent on iOS first, without a corresponding Android launch, suggests either that the app is an experiment in market positioning rather than a flagship product rollout, or that the iOS version of the underlying Gemma ASR models reached readiness before the Android configuration did. The App Store listing includes a reference to an Android version, so parity is presumably coming. The sequencing, however, means Google has launched a significant competitive product on Apple's platform before its own. The subscription model that has defined the premium end of AI productivity tools looks considerably less defensible when a technology company the size of Google enters the market for free. The two most prominent standalone dictation apps for iPhone, Wispr Flow and Willow, both cost $15 per month and rely on cloud processing, with Wispr Flow routing audio through servers operated by OpenAI and Meta. SuperWhisper, the most popular privacy-focused alternative, costs $85 per year and runs locally but is available only on Mac. Eloquent is free, runs locally on iPhone, and has no usage limit. It does not require a paid tier to access offline processing. For users who have been paying a monthly subscription primarily because no credible free alternative existed, the competitive arithmetic has changed overnight. The app also undercuts Apple's own built-in dictation, which is free but offers no filler-word removal, no text transformation, and no vocabulary learning. The practical quality gap between Apple Dictation and a Gemma-powered model running cleanup on top of ASR output is meaningful for anyone dictating more than occasional sentences. Eloquent is released under the Google AI Edge brand rather than Google's consumer product umbrella, the same initiative that provides developers with the tools and SDKs to run AI models locally on Android and iOS devices. That positioning suggests the app has a dual purpose: to demonstrate a real-world application of on-device Gemma capabilities for developers and enterprises evaluating the platform, as well as to serve as a direct consumer product. The broader push by major technology companies to run capable AI models directly on consumer devices has accelerated significantly over the past year, driven partly by privacy demands and partly by the latency and cost advantages of eliminating the server round-trip. Google AI Edge Eloquent is one of the clearest demonstrations yet of what that push produces when applied to an everyday productivity task. Voice as a primary interface for AI-assisted work has been a persistent promise in enterprise computing for years, consistently underdelivered because the friction of imprecise transcription outweighed the benefit of speaking rather than typing. Removing filler words, offering instant transformation modes, and doing all of it locally without a subscription changes the friction calculation. Whether Eloquent becomes a mainstream productivity tool or remains a developer showcase depends on whether Google continues to update and support it, a history that the company's track record with iOS apps does not make entirely easy to predict. The app exists. It is free. It works offline. That is more than most of its paying competitors can say simultaneously. A year that established on-device AI as a viable alternative to cloud-dependent tools set the stage; Eloquent is one of the more direct consumer expressions of that shift.

'Google AI Edge Eloquent' is an offline, subscription-less voice dictation app

Google today released a new app on iOS called "Google AI Edge Eloquent" that's rather curious. It's somewhere between an experiment and a user-facing tool. Google AI Edge Eloquent lets you "turn raw messy speech into well crafted text." As you start talking, you see a real-time transcription and waveform with the ability to pause. Once you press the stop button, Google will clean up the text and automatically copy it to your clipboard for easy pasting in other apps. Tools let you see the Key points as bullets, and make the text more Formal, Short, or Long. You also see Usage stats like how many words and your words per minute count. In the top-right corner, a toggle lets you enable a "fully offline" mode where conversations don't leave your device. Enabling Gemini lets you "enhance text polishing." The History tab shows everything you've transcribed with the ability to delete. In Dictionaries, you can "add names or jargon you use often to improve accuracy." This includes signing in with your Google Account to import such words from your recently sent Gmail messages. Google says this app offers "voice dictation without subscriptions" and that there's "no cap" in terms of usage. "AI Edge" is Google's branding for on-device AI experiences. Eloquent joins the existing Google AI Edge Gallery (Android + iOS) app that lets you download the latest version of Gemma, and got a big update with last week's model launch. At the moment, we're not seeing Google AI Edge Eloquent in the Play Store. It's unclear if the application is only for iOS.